Introducing Delete Profiles

Since CopyTools was first introduced, it has supported the copying and moving files only. While files could be deleted, this was only as part of a mirrored profile job and not something you could directly control. CopyTools now has a new dedicated job type for deleting files from a source folder, along with new options for including files by date. I think this feature was first requested back in 2014 - it's been a while coming.

Selecting the copy mode

Existing builds of CopyTools require you to select your source and destination folders, and then choose how files are to be copied. Clearly that couldn't work with delete jobs as there are no destinations. So the Edit Profile dialog has been reworked so that the very first question you're asked is what you want to do.

Note the UI is subject to change, while I like the clear ability to see all available options instead of a combo box, buttons aren't really appropriate controls to use, and control labelling still refers to "copy"

Once you have selected a mode the wizard steps will be updated to include or exclude the Destination stage if appropriate.

Selecting the files to delete

As well as the new copy mode UI, the Files to copy stage has also been reworked by splitting it into new sections.

The Inclusions and Exclusions section has the original options for choosing which files to include and which to exclude.

A new section has been added, Old and New Files. This allows you to select files based on age and allows the use of absolute or sliding values. For example, you might want to delete all log files over 90 days old. However, it doesn't just apply to delete jobs - equally, you might want to archive all log files over 90 days old, which you could do just as easily.

Deleting empty folders

We've also introduced a new flag (accessed from the Copy Mode stage) that lets you select if empty folders should be deleted. When this flag is set, CopyTools will delete any existing empty folders it finds while determining which files to copy. For delete job types, it will also apply to any folders which are empty due to their contents being deleted by the job.

Retry and error options

Also new in the current nightly are new options for controlling what happens when CopyTools can't copy a file. Previously, it would just log the failure and move on, but now you can choose between the following options

• Do nothing
• Wait, then retry the copy once more
• Retry the copy at the end of the run

The time that CopyTools waits before retrying is available, but there's currently no UI setting for it - that will follow in another update.

Currently files are only retried once. Potentially I'll be adding a configurable number of retries in a future build.

You can also configure what happens when CopyTools encounters a problem, such as not being able to copy a file and opt to either ignore the error, or cancel the entire profile.

Getting the new build

Important! Please check the notes in the CopyTools 2.0 announcement post for details about differences between v1 and v2 profile files, and known issues.

The delete job type, date filtering options and retry options are available in the current CopyTools 2.0 alpha, which can be obtained from the nightlies download section.

Updating stable releases

I'm very aware that since the nightlies were introduced the number of stable releases has plummeted as we've just been relying on the latest builds being available, despite the fact they don't show up as upgrades for stable builds and not all users are comfortable using them. This is something we'll be addressing over the coming months, by releasing stable builds of products and then getting back into a regular release cadence. And getting the documentation back in sync!

Update History

• 2017-02-23 - First published
• 2020-11-23 - Updated formatting

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